Bill 7 - the Galactic Hero (14 page)

“Nope. Nothing,” Sam said.

“Can't you see me?” the voice said, “Right here. Gee, I forgot to turn on the video, didn't I?” The big smooth patch flickered and turned into a picture of a man sitting at a desk. “That's better, isn't it?” He was bald, with just a fringe of hair, and obviously well-fed, but otherwise he was another member of the look-alike set that included President Millard Grotsky, Sam, Sid, and all the other bodyguards. They all had the same mustache, the same dark hair. Bill wondered if a cloning machine had gone berserk somewhere on Eyerack thirty or forty years ago.

And he said “gee,” too. Bill didn't even bother to ask about it this time.

“Gee, Bill, you haven't changed,” the director said.

“Have I met you before?” Bill asked.

“Oh, no, I mean from your pictures on the news. I'm Snorri Yakamoto. I'm really happy to meet you.”

Bill looked around at the cell-like room. What he could see of the director's office in the wall screen looked like genuine woodoid furniture, plastic-grain paneling on the walls, and a window. “I guess so. Nice office.”

“Thanks. Gee, I won't be able to meet you personally, but I've told Sylvia to do everything to make you feel at home, and to make sure you get the real VIP treatment while you're here.”

“Sylvia?”

“My receptionist. She's really something, isn't she?”

Bill felt he could agree with that.

“We'll have a dinner for you, and then tomorrow you'll get a tour of the whole mine. How does that sound?”

“Thrilling,” Bill said unthrillingly.

The dinner lived up to Bill's expectations.

The extruded dining room looked like any number of mess halls where Bill had eaten before. Robots served the meals instead of diners having to line up at a service counter, but they still came on trays, and all the supposedly different parts were gray and indistinguishable and mixed together at the edges.

The other guests were all tired and monosyllabic after their day's work. Bill did get to sit next to Sylvia, the only woman in the room, but every time his hand even started to move toward her knee, she punched him in the side of the head. And that was the only attention she paid to him, being still absorbed in her holoromance.

In short, the high point of the evening for Bill was when they went back to the car for their luggage.

“Gee, Bill,” Sam said, “at least you know tomorrow will be restful.”

“BLAAAT! BLAAAT! BLAAAT!”

The alarm trilled gently in Bill's ear.

“Burrrp! Blunnk! Bzzzzz!”

He sat bolt upright and grabbed for the controls of his turret before he remembered where he was. Then he reminded himself that, no matter what else could be said against the neutron mine, no one was trying to kill him here. He sighed, stretched, and leaned back against the extruded plasticrete pillow.

“Blaaat! Blaaat! Blaaat!”

Bill reached out and dealt a mighty blow to the alarm. The plasticrete alarm ignored the blow. Rubbing his hand, Bill had no choice remaining other than to get up.

The alarm shut off automatically.

Bill stumbled out into the living room of the suite and sat heavily on the couch. “Ow!” He shifted position to rub his butt.

Sid or Sam came out of his room, already through with the sonic shower and struggling with his cleansuit. “Gee, Bill, you'd better get a move on. That robot'll be here pretty soon, and it won't wait for you to get dressed.”

“Rrrmmph.”

Sam or Sid grabbed Bill's right arm — that is, the right arm on the right side — and pulled him upright. “Am I going to have to put you in the shower again?”

“Rrrmmph. No.” Bill dragged himself back to his bedroom, and got back out, cleansuit hanging off him, with nearly a minute to spare. Sid (they were both out now, so Bill could tell them apart) sealed him up.

“Today you will tour the mine,” the robot said by way of greeting. “Follow me.” It rotated and left.

Sylvia met them under a big sign that said ADIT.

“Adit?” Bill asked.

“Snorri's a big crossword puzzle fan.”

“Oh,” Bill said, no less confused.

“This neutron mine is unique in the universe,” Sylvia began her prepared speech. “Although all sorts of weapons can be built without neutrons, they are absolutely essential to the production of neutron bombs. Therefore neutron mining is controlled by the government as a strategic industry. Unauthorized removal of neutrons from this mine is a felony, punishable by a life sentence of hard labor in the lowest levels of the mine. Each of you will be given a souvenir neutron at the conclusion of this tour, but taking even one additional one will be treated as a crime.”

The adit doors slid open, and they went down a ramp into the mine proper. It looked very much like the hallways of a very cheap hotel. Except for being sprayed on rather than extruded, it was just like the upper levels.

“No expense has been spared to make working conditions as pleasant as possible, as you can see. As the neutron deposits are depleted, the upper levels are turned into residential, office, and laboratory space.”

Sylvia opened a door and let the visitors look in. Bill maneuvered around until he was directly behind her, and without looking she punched him in the right arm. “In here, scientists are working on improved ways of tracing the neutron veins through the surrounding rock.” A few sad-looking people with white lab coats over their cleansuits sat around a table. Sylvia closed the door before they even registered her presence.

“These elevators take miners down to the actual working levels. There are three types of levels: exploration, in the very deepest and newest parts of the mine; production, in those areas where exploration has been completed; and reclamation, where the veins have been mined out and the levels are being prepared for other uses. We will be going to the main production level, two miles below the surface.”

They all stood silently in the elevator as it descended. Bill yawned. Sam picked it up, then Sid, and Sylvia passed it back to Bill. This went on for a while, until Bill said, “You know, I'm a celebrity. People are nice to me wherever I go.” Sylvia punched him in the arm. “That's not what I mean. How come the director can't greet us personally?”

“The director doesn't see anyone personally,” Sylvia said.

“Not even President Grotsky,” Sid said thoughtfully. “And they're good friends. The president appointed Yakamoto to this job, and he's never seen him except on the holophone.”

“That's weird,” Bill commented.

“Snorri says he's worried about diseases,” Sylvia explained.

“I'm clean!” Bill objected.

Sylvia looked at him and snorted.

“No, really! I shower all the time. Sid and Sam can vouch for me.”

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. “Really? So that's how it is.”

This would have continued indefinitely, but the elevator reached their level.

As they stepped out, Sylvia slipped back into her tour-guide mode. Bill wasn't sure if that was an improvement.

“Since neutrons are so small, in their natural state they tend to be mixed up with lots of other small things, like sand, dust, and pebbles. A great deal of the space on the production levels, therefore, must be devoted to the equipment that separates the neutrons from the scree.”

“Scree?” Bill asked.

"Snorri likes crossword puzzles.

“Behind this soundproofed wall on your left is the sorting room. This is the largest single room in the mine. Please stay close to me.” She punched Bill on the arm. “Not that close.”

The din when she opened the door was impressive. The conveyor belts and cranes and trucks moving around were loud enough, but the vast sorter drowned them out.

The sorter was one huge machine stretching almost the whole length of the room, nearly half a mile. At various points different grades of ore were being dumped and shoveled and scooped into it, from fairly large boulders at the beginning to sand near the end. Sylvia couldn't explain anything above the noise, but it was clear enough that she just had to point to the main features through the clouds of rock and neutron dust, and even Bill could understand it.

Each section worked pretty much the same. The ore was thrown down a hopper, which fed it onto a large, heavy screen. The screen was shaken until everything that could fall through had done so. What remained on top was fed off to be crushed and sent through the hopper again with the next load. What fell through went into the next hopper, which went onto the next smallest screen. It was all incredibly noisy and even more boring; Bill felt his eyelids closing.

The shaking, shoveling, and crushing went on until the powder was so fine it was almost like a liquid, and only the neutrons themselves could get through the last screen. They fell into the industrial shipping containers like a mist. Workmen periodically stopped the rain of neutrons, sealed the containers, and put empty boxes in place. Guards watched the containers. Technicians with neutron detectors and really big magnifying glasses watched everyone else, making sure no stray neutrons rolled away, got caught in the seams of the cleansuits, or got stolen.

“Next,” Sylvia announced when they were back in the hallway again, “we will see how the neutron ore is extracted.”

But before they could get to that, a voice came over the public address system. “Brevet Lance Corporal Bill, please pick up any white courtesy phone. Brevet Lance Corporal Bill, any white courtesy phone, please.”

“Me?” Bill asked. “Who knows I'm here?”

“Gee, Bill, it has been in all the newspapers,” Sam whined.

“Oh, yeah. You told me. All I read is the funnies.”

Sylvia led Bill to the nearest phone and stood a discreet distance away.

“Hello, Bill here.”

“Gee, Bill, where are you?”

“President Grotsky? Is that you? I'm in the mine.”

“No, Bill, this is Snorri, the director, remember? What part of the mine are you in?”

Bill looked around and tried to remember what he'd just seen. “I'm outside a big room with a lot of machinery.”

“The sorting room. Main production level. Well then, you have about five minutes before the soldiers come to arrest you. You can't get out, but you may be able to hide somewhere down there. Take Sam and Sid with you, OK?”

“Hide? Why? I'm a celebrity; I don't hide from people.”

“Gee, Bill, you aren't a celebrity any more. Now you're an enemy soldier. There's been a military coup, and the new government wants to make you a prisoner. Well, they're trying to break down my door now. Gotta go!” And soon-to-be-former-director Yakamoto hung up.

“Sylvia! Where's the back entrance?”

Sylvia popped her gum. “Nowhere. There's only one entrance, you know. Why?”

“There's been a takeover by the military. They're coming here after me and Sid and Sam. You too, I bet. We've gotta hide!”

Sylvia popped her gum again. “What do you mean 'we,' paleface? I just work here. What about Snorri?”

“They were breaking down his door when he hung up.”

“Well, until they get here I still work for him. I gotta warn you, though, when the new guys show up I work for them. Your best bet is the exploration levels. Those aren't mapped so well.”

Bill grabbed the bodyguards and explained on the way to the elevator.

The bottom level of the mine wasn't nearly as luxurious as the production level. The walls hadn't been sprayed with plasticrete yet, the air conditioning hadn't been installed, there were very few lights, and the place generally looked like a mine.

“This way,” Bill said, picking a direction at random.

Within moments they were lost in the darkness.

“Sam?”

No answer.

“Sid?”

Still no answer.

“Bill?” Bill said.

“Yeah?”

Well, Bill thought, at least I'm here.

He had no idea where here was, or how long he'd been here, or how to get out, but at least he knew something.

He also knew that the soldiers hadn't found him, and that had to count for something, too. But not much, since the soldiers would have been able to give him food, and he hadn't found any of that down here. He'd fallen into lots of puddles, so water wasn't a problem, but he was getting really hungry; he was just about hungry enough to start considering giving himself up.

In fact, he'd already started thinking about considering it. He could tell that his beard was coming in, and that meant he had been wandering around in the dark for three or four days, at least. And his last meal was the evening before that. The food hadn't been very good, but it was getting better and better in retrospect. Bill was almost at the point where Trooper food would start looking good.

He stumbled slowly along, hands in front of him to keep from smashing his nose against the walls too often. Crunch! There was another one. He looked in both directions, just as a matter of form. It had been a long time since he'd seen anything; the place was, appropriately, as dark as the bottom of a mine.

To the right? Just what he expected — nothing. To the left? He must be going blind. A pale spot floated in front of him. He rubbed his eyes. The spot was still there. But wait! He remembered that he'd seen something like that before. It was a thing called a light!

Without thinking about it — as though that was something different in Bill's life — he staggered toward the distant glow.

He stumbled slowly at first, but gradually the implications of his discovery penetrated his granitic mind and moved him faster. If he didn't follow this light and get some food soon, he would die. And if he was dead, running away from the soldiers would not have done him any good. In that case, he might as well be a prisoner.

At the worst, being a prisoner couldn't be much worse than being a trooper, could it? And it had to be at least a little bit better than slowly dying of starvation in the darkness.

Staggering, stumbling and falling, always moving forward, toward the speck of light, Bill started to pick up speed. Eventually the light got bright enough so that he could make out the side walls of the passage; he accelerated to a medium shamble.

Now he could see the floor, at least enough to pick out the larger rocks and pits. He pressed on, pouring all his strength into reaching that light before it vanished; before it left him alone to die in the dark. Desperation drove him to almost a normal walking pace.